/ 25 May 2015

Vital partnerships on horizon for science and technology

Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor.
Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor.

Some government departments would co-fund academic research chairs with the department of science and technology, Naledi Pandor, the science and technology minister, told the Mail & Guardian after her budget vote in Parliament last week.

Inter-departmental co-operation has consistently been cited as an obstacle to innovation in the country and the efficient functioning of the science, technology and innovation space, as well as government as a whole.

“Two departments [water and sanitation, and human settlements] will be establishing research chairs with us,” Pandor said.

The South African Research Chairs Initiative, overseen by the National Research Foundation, has seen an investment of R870-million between 2006 and 2012, with an additional R1.7-billion leveraged from industry.

Pandor told Parliament that the 150 research chairs currently allocated have trained 406 PhD students, mentored 140 post-doctoral fellows, produced 1?568 peer-reviewed articles and numerous books and book chapters.

Science vote

Pandor’s department, which received some R7.49-billion from treasury, drives research and innovation in South Africa, and receives a substantially smaller budget than the likes of the departments of health, education and agriculture. These departments undertake research, but it is not their primary focus.

“We’re not yet co-ordinating as well as we should,” Pandor told the M&G. “Some of the MPs referred to this in their speeches [during the science and technology budget debate], particularly from the opposition parties. On that, I agree.”

She said that, to address this lack of cohesion, she wanted to reconvene “an old established ministers committee on science and innovation. I want to get it active again … and through that I’m going to develop a way of us working together.

“I want to do it on the basis of specific programmes … [such as] agro research [and] health science … [I want to] look from programme to programme on the areas in which we should collaborate,” Pandor said, adding that she “remained convinced that funding for research should be in a science vote”.

A “science vote” is a lump sum earmarked for science and research, which would be disbursed by the department.

Good partnerships

Pandor has been promoting the revival of the old science vote since her previous tenure as minister of science and technology. She held the post from 2009 until 2012, when she was redeployed to home affairs. In a Cabinet reshuffle in 2014, Pandor was reinstated as minister of science and technology.

However, despite criticisms about inter-departmental co-ordination, Pandor said: “I’m seeing far better partnerships now than in my first term in science and technology. There is a better appreciation of the role our entities and [the] department can [play].”

Pandor is also the deputy chair of the Cabinet’s cluster for economic sectors, employment and infrastructure development. “Through playing that role, I am able to place our [science, technology and innovation] agenda at the centre of discussion,” she said. “More departments are seeking out research partnerships with us.”